Red Snow
by DreamingAngelWolf
Summary: Later, if you ask him, the only red he'll remember is the colour of her hair. (One shot, AU)


Red Snow

Reality took a long time in catching up, long enough that the snow began to fall again, floating towards the ground in large, lazy flakes that he didn't really see or feel. It coated the landscape around them, as if in mockery of another world, cold and bleak. It was fitting.

"Is this what Heaven looks like?" she whispers.

He wants to shrug, but he's worried about jostling her. "I've never thought about it." Heaven is probably the one place he'll never be sent. "But this is snow."

She nods a little. "Heaven is warm." So they say.

There's a joke on his tongue: "You'll have to let me know when you find out." He can't say it, though, because he still can't believe it. Barely an hour ago (half an hour?) they'd both been the most alive people in this mountain-top hamlet. The memories take over, unbidden, and he sees dark grey-clothed workers fleeing in every perceivable direction, falling wherever they ran to from bullets both stray and intended, friendly and unfriendly. She was a whirlwind in their midst, while he picked them off from the outside, meeting her amidst the blood once it was over.

Then they'd been ambushed – piles of snow had come to life, wielding invisible weapons and coming at them, fast and deadly. Four on two, they'd scrapped for a while, and he'd finished his assailants off in time to turn and see her final one slash a knife against her side. She gasps, and then is shoved towards him. He shoots the figure as he catches her, holding her against his chest until he's sure they're alone before lowering her to the ground and inspecting the damage; the surgical precision of the wound both impresses and horrifies him. It's long and thin, almost connecting her belly button to the top of her hip bone, and from the way it pours out blood, deep. He applies pressure, but in the back of his mind he already knows – they're alone up a mountain with bad weather conditions, nothing but their clothes and weapons on them, and she needs stitches. She won't make it back to their cabin. She won't make it at all.

He positions her across his lap, real arm cradling her head, and considers taking his jacket off so he can gauge her temperature better – but she's having none of it, has already told him to leave her and get back, and he doesn't even acknowledge the order. Eventually, she slips one hand underneath his against her side, brings the other one up to lace their fingers together at her shoulder. Her grip tightens occasionally, and he squeezes reassuringly back.

A while later she tips her head, brushing her lips against his gloved hand and whispering his name. His real name. He waits, straining to hear what she has to say above the thud of his heart, but all that comes out is a soft sigh as her eyes flutter closed, and he feels the tension leave her muscles.

"Natalia?"

Reality finally reached them, and found two dark shapes lying in the snow, one with a halo of red hair. He holds her tightly against him, thumb stroking the top of her head, numb to the cold around him. He doesn't yet care about the who or the why, still hasn't registered the presence of the snowflakes, because all there is in that moment is her, and the feelings that finally start to leak out of wherever it his he's locked them away (because they only felt things when they were together – not as the Black Widow and the Winter Soldier razing a village to the ground, but when they could pretend to be remotely normal). It's not the Winter Soldier who recognises the truth though. It's James' tears that fall onto the snow as the heart he thought already mutilated enough breaks anew.

* * *

**AN: **:'-(

I can explain this by saying I had to whack out some Bucky feels, of which I've been having a lot recently (I can't explain it. I blame Sebastian Stan). Genuinely don't know anything about the Winter Soldier/Black Widow pairing, but this is totally AU (if you hadn't already guessed) and I just couldn't shake this image of Bucky holding Natasha in his arms, against the backdrop of a snow-covered mountain, as she slowly dies...

Ugh. I'm sorry. Normal story writing should resume... soon-ish. I hope.


End file.
